DeepSeek down: AI chatbot faces longest outage since rise of R1 and V3 models

DeepSeek down: The widely used Chinese AI chatbot encountered its most extended service disruption on Monday, marking its longest outage since the surge in popularity of its R1 and V3 models last year.

According to the company’s status page, the platform was hit by a “major outage” that lasted approximately seven hours and 13 minutes, beginning in the early hours of the morning and resolving at 10:33 am local time (02:33 GMT).

While the company did not provide a reason for the disruption, this aligns with its usual communication approach. Industry experts note that outages of this scale are often caused by server failures, infrastructure strain, or software bugs introduced during updates. The incident underscores the growing pains faced by AI platforms attempting to scale quickly while maintaining reliability for a global user base.

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Data shared by DeepSeek reveals that its API services, widely used by developers to integrate the chatbot into third-party applications, have previously faced stability issues. In late January 2025, during the peak of its viral popularity, the API reportedly experienced consecutive outages lasting up to a full day. However, its consumer-facing web interface had remained relatively stable, with no disruptions exceeding two hours until this latest incident.

This is not the first time the company has encountered major service interruptions. Shortly after launching its R1 reasoning model and offering it globally at no cost, DeepSeek was targeted by denial-of-service attacks aimed at overwhelming its servers with excessive traffic. At the time, the company described these as “large-scale malicious attacks”, highlighting the vulnerabilities that can emerge during periods of rapid growth and heightened visibility.

The latest outage arrives at a crucial moment for the company, as anticipation builds around its next-generation AI model, widely expected to be called V4. Despite growing speculation within the global AI community, DeepSeek has yet to confirm a release timeline or provide updates on its development progress.

Meanwhile, competition within China’s AI sector has intensified. Rivals such as Zhipu AI, MiniMax AI and Moonshot AI have introduced increasingly capable models that have gained international attention and praise. Their rapid advancements have placed additional pressure on DeepSeek, which has remained largely silent about its roadmap.

As the race to build more advanced AI systems accelerates, Monday’s outage serves as a reminder that performance and reliability remain just as critical as innovation in determining long-term success in the competitive AI landscape.